Snarky. Cheeky. Grumpy. Dopey. Never Bashful.

Main menu

Post navigation

Oregon Town Looks To Burning Man For Inspiration

Earlier this year we reported on some anti-Burner sentiment developing in Northern Nevada (The Natives Are Restless). Reno was quick to respond, with a front-page love letter to Burning Man the next day. Then Burning Man was named an “official event” of Nevada’s year-long, State-wide, sesquicentennial celebrations – one of 122.

The small town of Klamath Falls, OR – the “City of Sunshine” – is jumping on the bandwagon too. And good news: they want us. At least, one commentator does: The Klamath Rant. The town is about three hours drive from Black Rock City, and they claim a quarter of all Burners heading to the party pass through it. The Rant takes a look at the opportunity that Burners could offer for economic development, if only town officials could get past their “hippie” bias.

Burning Man is an infamous event that occurs every year in late August in northern Nevada, a 3.5-hour drive from Klamath Falls. Calling it an event is only partially accurate. Considering the infrastructure, this is a city that exists for two weeks. Organizers call it Black Rock City.

Residency of Black Rock City has increased every year since its inception in the early 90s. In 1998 the population was 23,000, roughly the size of Klamath Falls. In 2014 it bulged to 68,000. Roughly one-quarter of the traffic driving to Burning Man passes through Klamath Falls, a fact which some gas stations, hotels, and stores are keenly aware of. Klamath as a whole has yet to cater directly to this accidental tourism, and that is a shame.

Truly curious is that while Klamath can’t maintain consistent commercial air service, Black Rock City is served by several air carriers. Unlike Klamath, they receive no subsidies for their airport, no government marketing funds, and have never solicited commercial air service. They actually discourage it. Klamath continues to clamor for carrier solutions to no avail. More private aircraft visit during the two weeks of Burning Man than an entire year at the Klamath airport. The contrast between these two remote areas is a testament to the ineptitude of Klamath’s myopically deluded community of managers.

In pointing out the obvious, we tend to gift cures to those whom we loathe. Is the the sport of illustrating local incompetence is worth the price of the effort? These people consume our breadcrumbs, then take credit for out-of-the-box thinking. They get paid for it, we do not. And that is the crux of what makes Black Rock City such a huge success and Klamath an enormous failure. Klamath fails to reward creative that don’t fit the limited conservative profile…

Klamath Falls needs to be far more interesting and creative in much different ways (not the car show, fair, quilting, bird watching, gun show activities we’ve been engaged in like most rural communities). The only way we can envision this happening is if the old guard that insists on occupying positions of authority in defense of the status quo suddenly steps down and allows a generation with a different mindset to take over. This isn’t just the people who keep getting re-elected: we’re talking about entire administrations…

In this age, places that reward and integrate the creativity of outliers tend to be economically successful. Ashland, Bend and Hood River are shining examples of towns that fully embraced youthful creativity. In any of these communities, musicians and artists feel immediately welcomed. As they become part of the inviting atmosphere, they build vibrancy. Not only are their ideas incorporated, their creative pursuits are monetized into the business fabric. This is a major reason why property values in those three communities have escalated while Klamath’s has continued to decline. When faced with choices that some would call opportunities, we chose boring.

…With awareness that the general population considers Burning Man an enigmatic joke, we catered to that feeling by hooking the reader by placing “hippie” in the title. This archetype has rolled eyes since the 60s. Such categorization allows Burning Man to be readily dismissed as something that offers no lessons for communities like Klamath. This is unfortunate because there are many ways to adapt their practices to cure the stale funk that permeates Klamath’s rural society

Mark Zuckerberg, the 30-year-old CEO and founder of Facebook. His net worth is estimated at $30 billion. Also from Facebook was Dustin Moskovitz, 30, net worth $6.8 billion.

Sergey Brin, age 41 with a networth of $31 billion and Larry Page, also 41 with a net worth of $31.2 billion are co-founders of Google also go to Burning Man (they also attended Stanford in Palo Alto).

These are the most famous captains of industry that attend. A substantial portion of the rest of the Black Rock City population are upper and mid level managers of major companies, entrepreneurs, investors, and engineers.

These people are drawn to join a city that exists for two weeks in a Nevada location that is far more rural and isolated than Klamath…

How does all this link back to Klamath?

We learn the lesson that anchoring amenities such as air service doesn’t require government assistance if a community can figure out how to be creative, open and interesting.

Klamath hinges the majority of its tourism marketing on the presence of Crater Lake. The problem is, Crater Lake does nothing to sustain interest or improve the social fabric necessary for development and retention. Jackson County and Medford were way ahead of Klamath in becoming the portal to Crater Lake. Their advantage is they have other creative anchors like Ashland and Jackson Hot Springs that build resilience. Visitors are not impressed by the visitor experience in Klamath over Medford in any way. There’s less to do, fewer shops, and a void of visible creativity. If Crater Lake works as an anchor, why hasn’t it been attracting the A-list that frequents Burning Man?

The use of natural amenities in creative ways draws creatives. Many Burners enjoy visiting area hot springs during their trek. With all its geothermal resources, Klamath only offers an atypical swimming pool that is not an adult attractor in any sense. Take the Breitenbush Hotspring example between Bend and Salem, for example. They have built a cultural creative persona around geothermal soaking and camping. The Wellsprings between Ashland and Medford has been reinvented as a creative village for wellness with regular concerts and free-association binges.

Less obvious and difficult to pin down are the myriad of city and county regulations and procedures that kill creativity. The thing creatives dislike more than all else is nonsensical bureaucracy that feels like prejudice in practice. That is the greatest barrier locals need to devote the most effort to overcome.

Due to anchor points of a physical nature (OIT, National Guard, Hospital, County Seat), Klamath isn’t going to die, but it will continue to exist in a zombie-like state of limbo, gnawing on the brains of transients – not unlike Lakeview in the mid-90s. There you had a community devastated by the reduction of timber harvesting and value-added manufacturing. They spun in circles for many years, taking large government subsidies, but turning away the few business development opportunities that visited them. The state located a prison in Lakeview that the locals were vehemently opposed to. They are used to it now and in spite of themselves, have seen some peripheral investments such as a tactical training facility. These unwanted investments brought enough employment to sustain or rebuild a few dying eateries and stores.

That’s what happens to communities in limbo. Those that fail to attract favorable investments end up being the dumping ground for projects no one else in the state wants. At Klamath’s current state, there’s no reason to expect a different outcome…

…The best thing Klamath could do is the easiest. Being in a location where 25% of the Burning Man traffic passes, there are many projects Klamath could invoke that would not only capitalize on this human migration, but use it to attract and retain creatives in the long-term.

It simply doesn’t work to write-off that crowd of Burners as penniless vagabonds, certainly not when you consider the multi-billion net worth of the A-list. Tally the net worth of the rest of the lists down the alphabet and there is a substantial pool of capital being spent somewhere, usually not in Klamath. This is something the Chamber of Commerce should be addressing, but they are not. Or the Tourism Department, who just can’t comprehend that Burners are typically more affluent than the dwindling supply of common tourists in spite of their strange appearances and hippie personas as they stampede through.

Still don’t get it? OK, here’s the great idea we won’t see any credit for…

Create and publicize a large stopover campground for Burners along with a vendor fair. Burners prefer to buy their supplies and bling along the way because it makes their long drive more comfortable if their vehicles are not so crowded in the beginning. (Some Burners on the drive are travelling all the way from Vancouver, BC and Seattle). If they know there are places to scrounge supplies and junk for re-purposing, they will make a point of spending more time and money in Klamath. There is surplus unused acreage south of Klamath Falls and extra funding in the Tourism budget to pay for staging this a token to win Burner affection. The community college has its own acreage to offer, but it would probably be too great a stretch for them to wrap their minds about creative use of their unused property. We certainly wouldn’t want to unleash creativity on a college campus around these parts.

The County and the City have in the past shut down numerous locals that wanted to host flea markets. Creatives love flea markets and the absence of a junk marketplace continues to harm Klamath’s bootstrappers. The County also seems to frown on collections of RVs camping on any land except the one campground in the City of Klamath Falls (KOA…small and difficult to maneuver into) or the fairgrounds (for rare special events only). These archaic policies need to be eliminated in a very open manner if Klamath chooses to embrace, rather than ignore the tremendous financial resources represented by the annual Burner migration.

People of Klamath, please understand, that to find a town that welcomed Burners with open arms, year round, would be a dream come true for our community. And yes, we have a LOT of billionaires – probably more billionaires than any other party on earth, except Bohemian Grove. Your airport looks big enough for their private jets and space craft, with lots of vacant land around it. Throw the party there, and Burners can jet directly into their camp, without any dust issues…P.Diddy might even bring his boom box.

Post navigation

18 comments on “Oregon Town Looks To Burning Man For Inspiration”

Hey people, for the last 5 years we have been on 6th street in the top part of the parking lot of the “Grocery Outlet”, selling our original Tye Dye shirts and dresses, socks, and hoodies, we are called “Oregon Tye Dye” We support The Burners who come threw on there way to the black rock city (Burning man event) each and every year with our wares, which by the way are the best products in all of Oregon! You can see us for miles away on 6th street by our decorative flags we fly. Come on by and say Hello to us, Margie and Bill brown, and Jeff Peters. We give away free ice cold water during the month of August so come by and say hello and check us out. We are all products of the 60’s and 70’s come share your thoughts and memories with us….Long live the Hippies…;-)

I would love to all I can do to help this great county to expand its minds and get these burners here. I am a business owner in Klamath and have been for the past 12 years. It is changing and changing for for the better. Kelley our new commissioner is going to do what she can to help get this county back on track.

Klamath County has too big a jail industry. 70-80% of the budget is for law enforcement and “justice”, a figure I’ve heard repeatedly. The jail routinely books and releases local good-ol-boys committing property and personal crimes. On the other hand a certain non-trivial part of the jail population are middle class people with legal problems that are trivial and/or entirely irrelevant to the local community. These people are often not released but held either for some significant amount of time or until they can cough up a high bail.

Burners would become a target for this. They would be ticketed, arrested, and in some cases jailed. And held for bail. At the same time they are likely to be victims of the areas high crime rate.

The county has far too much corruption and backwards attitude to cater to burners.

How about the companion event, Water Woman. Choose a river front ranch, wash off the playa, keep the wonder and wander off for another week. Bring new energy to the whole community. Think global water awareness with a unique Oregon twist.

I love the opportunity to show off all that Klamath County has to offer to even more people! Burners, please let us know if there are specific ways we could help facilitate your visit, we are happy to have you!

I too think these are great ideas! We certainly need a shot in the arm (or some other place) I have lived here for forty years; when I came we had a thriving Mall, and lots of business. Now it is a sad town, but I love the people and friendliness and don’t want to move. We just need some new life shot into us.

Excellent idea! I had a discussion about incorporating various art forms in a vandalizing prevention kind of way when the “derelict buildings” downtown were in debate about being demolished. The discussion I had with a City Council member was quickly shot down. It truly is a sad story, Klamath Falls.

Interesting read! I’ve only passed through Klamath Falls 3x in 8 years. (From Seattle) Feels like a ghost town. I’ve noticed a big change in attitude in LaPine, for example–to the point where I look forward to stopping there–gas, morning coffee, and/or cheap sunglasses from the mini-mart. Their campground is HUGE and a good mid way stopping point (though now I go to Summer Lake Hot Springs).
Good luck KF! You can do it!

I should say that we love this community for certain aspects but being a business owner has been a challenge. Eating top ramen and going without necessities to keep out doors open just gets old after awhile. But, I feel with some good ‘ole work we can change the dynamic of KFalls even if its just the two of us.

Shoot me an email id love to chat with you! Great article and so true. I own a business in Kfalls and ask myseld daily why I waste my creative talents but for some reason I feel like we can change this community.